As our son contributed a few tiles to the Brockley Common "treasure cross mosaic" during Saturday's party on Brockley Common, we learned a few things about the station's future, which we share with you now:

- The low wall along the ramp will eventually be covered in more mosaic

- The high concrete wall will be painted in a sympathetic colour scheme

- New trees will be planted between platform 2 and the common, near the lower entrance

- The ugly concrete shed that is the station will not have anything done to it unless TfL lets them plant a few creepers to cover it

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comments:

The step free access to this station remains unpredictable- with the gate sometimes being opened by station staff and othertimes despite a number of passengers requesting that it be opened it stays firmly closed. Presumably station staff are making some sort of assessment of need before opening the gate and whilst there may be some passengers with very obvious and visable needs , there are many health conditions and mobility issues that are less obvious but that would make stair climbing difficult and step free access desirable.It's very unsatisfactory! Why can't there be a ticket barrier at ground level?

Every one here is waited with baited breath for the new TfL funding aggrement. There was a 10 year funding plan agreed, to recognise that big upgrades cannot be efectivly planned if your seeking funding every year - a Ken victory. That started to go pearshapped when Metronet died, then we had the recession THEN Tubelines went belly up.

That funding is essentially in the bin so a new deal on its way. Doubt it will be for 10 years and it will be less. Step Free schemes have already been cut right back as have station refurb and modernisations. All the funding will be concentrated on trains, signalling and track upgrades we assume. All the things required to shift more passengers.

Short term funding tends to push you toward reactive maintenance as lots of the old boys here tell me.

The step free issue is a pain - BUT, small fry when you compare it to Crystal Palace. Went there at the weekend with a pram and had to do a virtual obstacle course to get out of the station, going up steps, down steps, then up steps again. Presumably Crystal Palace doesn't have any wheelchair users.

Not sure of the detail of the DDA legislation but I think 'reasonable' adjustments have to be made - cost wins. For new stations it's very hard for them to argue that they cannot do it, despite what Lou thinks.

LU, and I assume TfL, actually work on the idea of 'mobility impared' passengers so disabled, old, parents with prams and those with luggage would help build a bussiness case.

The ticket office is a joke. You can't create a better impression of Brockley until that thing is replaced, as I've been saying here for years. Ditto the nearby MOT centre, which requires compulsory purchasing and razing.

Can't all the local "creative" "media" "types" have a whip round and sort it out?

Can they also change the software of the ticket machine?I bought a ticket for a "London Terminal" only to have to shell out £4 to get out at Liverpool Street because "not of the overground".It's completely misleading, it's plugged in a network and if at Whitechapel there's no barrier to get out of the overground and into the underground one can well assume that a ticket for a "London Terminal" is valid to exit from a "London Terminal".

"Max, a National Rail ticket to London Terminals can't be used on the tube. Simple no?"

Yes, simple because there are barriers to get out of the National Rail and into the Tube though. That makes it pretty clear that they are separate operations. Not so between the overground and underground.

Deeelish choc brownies being sold by BXAG by the station on Sat I had to buy 2. Compliments to the chef. Followed by a gorgeous espresso from Browns... The really do make fantastic coffee. Things are looking up!

Girl serving in Browns heard me waxing lyrical about different types of coffee, grind, plumbed in machines vs household ones etc etc like a coffee bore and when I went up to pay she cautiously showed me a special bean that Square Mile Coffee has released as a limited edition. Apparently only a limited amount is produced every year an it's incredibly fruity and very hard to get hold of. She pulled it from behind the counter like a bag of marijuana and told me that I could look at it but she wasn't allowed to make it for me....

BTW are overground/ELL trains affected by the Tube strike? Wondered if they would stillbe running seeing as the ELL is not technically the Tube.

Nick I'll see you're Letts and raise you a Boris. He was funny on HIGNFY, apparently. Then look what happened.

On the station access issue, the Access for All programme is a Network Rail thing, independent of TfL. Brockley and Honor Oak Park are in Tranche 3, to be delivered 2012-2015. Whether or not this survives the cuts is anyone's guess though.

Sad to say it's not the case that the station staff open the gate on request- two occasions recently both mid afternoon - one where a mum with pushchair and toddler had to struggle up stairs as they 'could not find the key'!) and they other when I asked why the gate could not be opened the station staff said they only opened it for 'pregnant women,pushchairs etc ' resulting in those of us with less obvious mobility issues have to take the stairs- hence my earlier post doubting the ability of station staff to assess need

"In fact, safety has no place anywhere. Everything that's fun in life is dangerous. Horse races, for instance, are very dangerous. But attempt to design a safe horse and the result is a cow (an appalling animal to watch at the trotters.) And everything that isn't fun is dangerous too. It is impossible to be alive and safe."

He is officially the only funny right winger in the states. "republican party reptile" or "holidays in hell" are good reads

Surprised to hear you say that Monkeyboy. You've waxed lyrical on here about using Degustation and Beloved Butchers for your tastes in meat and cheese. Are you suggesting that coffee beans have no such complexity, and the process of brewing them are universal wherever you go?

'Coffee chat' can obviously be blagged by bullshitters, but that doesn't mean that serious coffee enthusiasts haven't got anything to talk about. It's like saying all wine is the same. Any idiot with a dodgy taste buds can still taste the difference between different cups of coffee. I know F all about coffee but i know that I like some coffee and dislike other coffee. That's coz the beans are - er like- different? Hugh, as usual, is just talking out of his arse.

@THNick - I didn't say left-wingers were funny either. Anyone whose ideology trumps their empathy is going to be a poor observational comic. Mark Steels, for example, is incredibly unfunny.

However, to be centre / left is to think about the human condition. To be right wing is to shut your eyes and ears to it. Comedy is an exploration of the human condition.

Jeremy Hardy, Stewart Lee, David Mitchell, Armando Ianucci, Jon Stewart - all the best comedians are leftish, but can handle complex ideas.

To be an ideologue is to disregard complexity, which is why right wingers and to a lesser extent hard left wingers make good polemicists.

The minute you have to start thinking about a subject and acknowledging the grey areas of life, it becomes hard to rant about something. Far easier to grab hold of one or two facts and ramble on from there, disregarding anything else.

Ben Elton is an abomination who's almost certainly more right wing than left these days. A reactionary bore at the very least.

Are you joking? Have you seen how much it's possible to spend on coffee related paraphernalia? A plumbed in, brass boilered Gaggia or similar espresso machine will set you back at least a grand or 2, then there's the bean roaster (serious coffee heads buy the beans green and roast them themselves), then vacuum containers to store the roasted beans at their optimum, then the burr grinder (blade grinders like the ones from Argos are sh*t) etc etc.

This little lot will probably hit a few grand and that's before you've even taken a decent Barrista course to teach you about different pressures and grinds and flavours of the various single estate beans you can get.

It's a huge world of knowledge, just like wine. Orange squash is sugar solution with orange colour added...

Only a fool would deny that coffees can vary in quality and taste - I didn't, you'll notice.

But you can buy good coffee everywhere these days. Nero's? Check. Sainsbury's? Check. Browns? I dare say.

There's nothing wrong with noting that a local coffee house like Browns serves a decent espresso. But people have this curious need to go far beyond that, don't they? Like OMG you SO just HAVE TO travel across London in the rain without shoes to DIE FOR the Americanos they serve at BROWNS which is like probably and literally (like, at once) the BEST COFFEE I HAVE EVER TASTED IN MY LIFE?

No it isn't. It's just good coffee like most other places. Stop exaggerating and try (this is harder although out of fashion) to be interesting.

'However, to be centre / left is to think about the human condition. To be right wing is to shut your eyes and ears to it. Comedy is an exploration of the human condition.'

What a generalisation! I'm on the centre/left/fairly deep green side but I don't think it's as simple as that. What about Evelyn Waugh? Very right wing, and possibly the funniest writer in English of the 20th century.

Nick, Right wingers may or may not be ignorant of the human condition, but at least they are cognisant of things like budgets and fiscal responsibility. From a government, I know which I'd rather.Hugh, I don't consider myself a connoisseur, but the coffee at browns is the best I've ever tasted - seriously! We should be proud to have them in the community.

Amusing how people get all exercised when you point out the geeza is nekkid.

And Headhunter, saying there's a difference between Browns and Sainsbury's coffee isn't worthy of comment. It's people like the wide-eyed Tim ('best coffee I have ever tasted!') that we need to be wary of.

By the way, have I mentioned that I play a bit of tennis? Don't want to brag, but I think I might be the best player in SE London. I was out there hitting balls last weekend and something just so really clicked? And pretty soon I was in this weird zone of perfection and I could tell other people noticed it. We were all pretty amazed at some of the shots I was hitting? I guess I was seeing the ball like a football.

That I think it's the best coffee I've ever tasted could indeed be because my experience of good coffees is extremely limited. However, at least give me credit for being able to formulate my own opinion.

I'm 10 pages into a philosophy book. Is what we can know about the world in the mind or is it purley dependant on the senses...or something... I may have re-read that chapter. Or if there are no coffee bores drinking a cup of single estate expresso is it still worth five quid? Discuss.

I think a lot of the perceived taste subtleties come, in all honesty, from the expectations generated by the environment, cup, packaging, preparation process, or bloke telling you that the beans are ones picked only for two nights a year under a full moon and then processed through a civet's rectum (etc, etc.) Wine is much the same, as tests involving people being lied to about what was in the glass, or done in different environments, have demonstrated. I say this as a semi-wine bore (or wine semi-bore, take your pick) myself.

As for coffee, can't get that excited about it - it doesn't even get you pissed.

Monkeyboy - By calling it "expresso" you have expunged the validity of any further comment you make on the subject of coffee...

lb - I had no expectation of decent coffee when I 1st went into Browns, I mean it's a tiny cafe, run by a bunch of 20 somethings which seems never to be open and is very basically decorated. There is very little there to make you expect anything other than a caffeine hit, I just thought I would get a quick n basic coffee and not much else when I went there. However I would swear on my mother's life though that in a blind tasting, I could tell the difference between Browns/Exchange's/other decent cafe's coffee compared to Nero/Starbucks/other bog standard chain places. The guys who run Browns look like a bunch of lazy students but they certainly seem to know a thing or 2 about coffee!

As a (semi) trained barista, there really is far more to coffee than meets the eyes. The flavours change in many ways. Ethiopian beans (largely considered the best) taste very different to beans form Brazil. Then there's the method used for roasting them, which changes the flavour, and the strength. Combine different beans together, and the taste changes again. Anyone can make coffee, but only a barista can make truly satisfying.

As for Browns. I went there once. Had a latte. Small, expensive, dull, bland taste, and made without skill.

@Tim - re: right-wing fiscal responsibility, that wasn't the matter under discussion and perhaps you're right, although you might want to check the right wing Republican Party's record on Fiscal Responsibility since Reagan before you assert the two things go hand in hand.

My granny used to buy fresh beans and toast them at home, I've done it plenty of times when I was a child, she had a pan to toast coffee beans over the hob exactly like this one:http://www.flickr.com/photos/sorrentinacoffee/3627267599/

I guess that after a while you start understanding how to do it exactly the way you want it.

Nick - I was trying to say that when it comes to politics, a knowledge of the human condition is very unimportant to me. I just want the basics done well. Knowledge of the human condition should be irrelevant to politics, which is why I was miffed when you said right wingers like me had no knowledge of it.

I said right wingers don't care about the human condition. You say that, as a right winger, you don't care about the human condition, so what was it I said that you're unahppy with? It seems we're agreeing...

On your other point, I think understanding how real human beings actually work is pretty fundamental to constructing effective policy.

Ideologues of both left and right wings don't really care about or understand real people.

Right wingers think everyone else who's not like them is scum.

Left wingers think the world is divided neatly in to the oppressed or the oppressor.

The world should be run by people who like Radio 4's Analysis, In Business and The Bottom Line. Sadly, politics is dominated by people who think Newsnight, Question Time and the Today programme are the zenith of debate.

I'm not really that into the whole coffee as lifestyle thing and find it all a bit wanky. However I can honestly say that I had a flat-White coffee at browns the other day and thought it was quite literally the best caffeinated beverage I had ever tasted. It was £2 though.

"Wanky" or no, decent coffee is good stuff. I'm not trying to buy into a lifestyle of some kind or other, whatever that may be, I'm just stating my feelings, just as I may perhaps state my feelings about the Sunday roast at The Orchard vs The Barge.

I just like the coffee from Browns and a few other places and although acceptable, generally find that coffee from chain places is average at best. It's just my opinion.

As I've said before, the main difference between left and right-wing discourse is that in the case of the latter, the problem is always other people.

"PS - by centrists, I don't mean the Lib Dems.

I mean technocrats. People who like evidence-based policy"

Well, quite. But there are few or none; "evidence-based policy" is a little too close to the materialist core of Marxism for most people nowadays. Centrism (as with politics of the left) in the past thirty years has fallen into a neo-liberal, focus-group-led morass.

Back on topic,

"Is there any way we can transform the station at least aesthetically in an affordable way?"

Yes yes, but this is precisely what has been done, with murals, planting, etc - cheap, achievable and effective. To demand that we somehow pull a new station building out of our collective backsides is going a bit far.

@ Nick - My understanding is that TFL had a plan to change the station before the opening of the ELL. That plan was not executed and budgets have been cut further since. Point 4 of your post also mentions that there are no plans for the station.

I wish I was wrong, but I do not see them doing the work in the near future.

So my point was that perhaps we can do something about it meanwhile instead of discussing if a blend of coffee is conservative or lefty.

Somehow the grey box is not in tune anymore with the beautiful landscape delivered by the BXAG and the nurals on Coulgate.

Even a lick of colourful paint would improve the station building. BXAG or whoever may even be able to get the paint free of charge from Community Repaint, but the problem is, if you paint a concrete building once, it will soon deterioriate and need frequent repainting.

Previously the grey box was hidden by the cherry tree that used to blossom nicely in spring before being axed to make way for the new slope and steps, unfortunately this has left the grey box completelyu exposed in all its glory

The station is under the responsibility of London Overground (0845-601-4867)I then read the comments on the Brockley Central - rang back and recommended that the comments about the assessment of need and even obvious cases not being given access be looked into.

Serious issues about access as there's no alternative to stairs on the london bound platform and that the access recently put in with the ramp at the ticket side only takes you to the ticket office - where you then have to go down stairs - although you can go back down the ramp and hope the staff respond to you pressing the buzzer to open the gate. It's absurd - months of building work creating a path with a long walk just to gain access to the ticket office but not step-free access to the trains (does anyone fancy posting photographs?)

To play devils advocate. The ramp was never supposed to be a complete step free solution. I suspect it was a case of funding being available for the common so including a ramp now would make it less expensive to make the station completly step free at a later date. Not a completly barking strategy.

Perhaps it was about funding - but it is a bit piecemeal - more sensible to bring the ticket office down to ground level on the coulgate side and maybe have another entrance on the mantle road side - plus if you have mobility problems it is a long ramp to walk especially if you have to do it twice.

Don't forget though that the new expensive ramp also gives access to the footbridge over the station to the other side of the world. So even people who don't use the train can cross the railway with ease.

However, it's a horrid horrid station to look at and to use.

Seeing as most people object to the ugly grey ticket box, why not pay some kids to do some really ugly graffiti all over it. That way, TfL will probably paint it a nice colour.

Don't forget though that the new expensive ramp also gives access to the footbridge over the station to the other side of the world. So even people who don't use the train can cross the railway with ease.

True - just looked on google maps and it is a long way around otherwise

I just think there needs to be a proper review for access in both directions - not sure of plans for 2012.

It is a huge inconvenience to have to go up the stairs then through the station and down more stairs (to travel away towards Honor Oak) when there is a gate at ground level, the gate is open at night thank goodness, but not in the mornings